China
Guatemala
Russia
Vietnam
Brazil
India
EthiopiaWe already had a little boy who we needed extra special help to conceive and had a lot of trouble delivering. We were told not to go that route again. We thought we were happy with just one child. However, a few years later we knew we wanted another child. Since going the IVF route was out, we decided on adoption. My father is from Shanghai, China, so a little girl from China was a natural fit. Somehow I knew there was a little girl over there that needed me.
We went to our first FTIA meeting in January 03. According to my husband we were just going to check it out. We didn't know what it would take, how much it would cost, etc.… In all honesty, I found the meeting slightly dry. I am not a detail person, and they were going over what it takes for each country. It was dry right up until they brought in all the parents with their children. I almost cried (I am also not a very emotional person). Those children were beautiful. Each one was special. I was especially moved by parents that decided to adopt even though their children were over 20. When we left the meeting my husband told me that he needed to run our finances and we could talk about it again in a week. I remember during that week telling one of my dear friends that if for some reason my husband said no, I would be heart broken. But I knew that if we were going to do this, we both needed to be behind it 100%. Finally, at the end of the week, my husband said that he wanted to do it the minute he saw those children also, but he needed to figure out how we could afford it. We decided to refinance our house and get a home equity loan.
We finally got our act together, finished our basement, refinanced our house, finished our paper chase, and submitted our paperwork in October 03. We were official in November 03. When we first started, they were estimating wait times at 11-12 months. By the time we were DTC, wait times were 8-9 months. I thought we would get our referral in June and Rob thought July. Our official DTC was November 11, 2003. At the beginning of May 2004, up to the middle of October had received their referrals. I knew we were next. I was hoping to get our referral during Memorial Day weekend since we had a lot of family up for the Indianapolis 500, but it was not to be. I became a mad woman checking on the November DTC website constantly. However, on the day we did receive our referral, June 6, at 11:37 am, I was ready. I was at work and they called on my cell phone. I put Renee on speaker phone so my boss could write down everything for me because I didn't trust myself to be able to read my own writing. My entire office (all 6 of us) cried for the next hour. I called my husband, parents, grandparents, friends, everyone! I drove to Evansville the next day to get our referral package, which was 3 hours away. When we received Lin Fengs information and it all looked amazing and she was beautiful. There was no doubt that we were going to accept our referral.
Now being complete and total procrastinators, we had done nothing to get ready yet, so we were in high gear. We had to get the nursery done, bring the dusty crib up from the basement, buy some clothes, and get new luggage. FTIA created a travel group chat room that was a big help. However, it seemed like everyone else was so together. We received our travel information at the beginning of July and planned to leave for China on July 21st. My father had warned me that it was going to be hot. He had also talked about the poverty and the government. He did not want to travel with us since it meant he got to spoil my son while I was gone.
Packing was crazy and my husband became the suitcase tyrant. We had to keep the weight of our suitcase at 42 lbs and he was constantly weighing our luggage. I also did not bring much for our little girl who we had decided to name Megan (even though we had planned to name her Sarah, when we looked at her picture, she looked much more like a Megan to us than a Sarah).
Finally the day to leave arrived. The hardest thing I've ever done is leaving my son for 2 weeks, but I'm glad I did. The first 2 days were spent in Beijing touring, seeing the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, and the Forbidden City. I think it was hard on those parents who took their kids. The Chinese people were wonderful. They wanted their pictures taken with all the "American looking" children. Also, for the first-time-parents the Beijing days were harder since we didn't have our children yet. However, for my husband and I, it was like a nice vacation. We had a hotel room to ourselves and we got to eat a few meals and talk like adults. While we also couldn't wait to get our Megan, it was nice having a few days to ourselves.
Finally the day came for us to board the plane for Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province and the place we would get our daughter. We were down to 9 families: 8 couples and a single mom. We checked into the Majestic Hotel and got a wonderful surprise. Cassey and Jasmine, our FTIA representatives who traveled with us from Beijing were very nice and helpful. Our local guide was Roger and we soon started calling him the Godfather. He was wonderful. If we needed something, Roger was on his cell phone arranging for it to happen. He was very personable and made everyone feel at ease. As he talked to us about Nanning and Guangxi Province he kept referring to the Children as our daughters. We loved it.
One of the first things Roger arranged for us was a massage. This was done the night before our Gotcha Day and was amazing. Now to the Gotcha Day.
We were to receive our daughters on July 26, 2004. I had told everyone that in the middle of the night on Sunday we would be getting our children since it would be Monday afternoon in China. In the morning before we were to leave, we filled out paperwork. Roger kidded that we had gone from a happy group to a nervous group. Earlier that day we had met a man who adopted a special needs 2½ year old girl from the Nanning Orphanage. She was beautiful but would only hold on to her father's finger and cry as she walked up and down the halls. This was the longest morning of my life.
The next portion of this is taken from the e-mail I sent my family the night after we received Megan. I didn't want to rewrite it since it was exactly how I was feeling at that time.
Today at 3:30 at the Civil Affairs office we arrived to be told to go to the 3rd floor and wait. On the way to the office we were reminded that we were to ask no questions, just get our babies and get back on the bus. We will have time for questions on Tuesday when we meet with the director and caretakers. Once we got to the room all of us quickly showed each other how to use our video cameras. Then they called the first couple. With tears in their eyes they ran to the front of the room. Then the officials handed them two bags of formula. At this point we all started laughing, it was a good tension breaker!! After a few more minutes of waiting, a woman from the Yulin Social Welfare Institute got up and introduced the director to us and told us to be prepared for some of the babies to mourn their foster parents. Then notes were handed out to those couples whose babies were sent with notes. We have not gotten ours translated yet, but we're pretty sure all it says is that she was born on September 12, 2003. FINALLY workers carried in 9 babies. Then they started calling us up couple by couple. We were second to last, but I knew Megan the moment I looked at her. She looks like her pictures only more beautiful. I'm going to try and send pictures as soon as we get our computer problems worked out. When our name was called, Rob and I stepped up and I made Rob take her. After a minute of her crying in Rob's arms I reached over and took her. I stared singing "You are my sunshine" and after three times she seemed to calm down a little. Many of the caretakers were crying, and I am tearing up thinking about it.
She started crying again as soon as we got on the bus. She wouldn't look at me and only looked out the window. Finally she fell asleep. We got back to the hotel and laid down with her a few minutes. They came to our doors and said we had to come out for a family picture for the orphanage. Rob took her and we headed out for the hallway. They made us wake her up for the picture. After the picture, Rob started feeding her cheerios and we realized she was hungry. She then proceeded to eat a ton of cheerios, a bowl of congee (rice soup) and some Gerber plums. She ate and ate and ate. We then went down to the restaurant for us to eat. She also ate some noodles in the restaurants. So far she's a great eater!
She's a funny little girl and loves to play with stacking cups. Right now she is very attached to me and will not let Rob hold her anymore. But she loves to play with him. When he leaves the room she starts looking around for him and pointing to where he went. She wants to sit on my lap and play with Rob. If Rob picks her up she screams, they warned us that this might happen. After dinner she got really fussy. By now it was close to 8 p.m. and she had not had much of an afternoon nap. According to her schedule she naps twice in the afternoon, once for an hour and once for a half hour. She was very tired and getting crankier by the minute. We tried rocking her to sleep, bouncing her, singing to her, but the more we tried, the harder she cried. Finally, I thought I just would lay her in the crib and see how hysterical she becomes. Well apparently, when she's tired, all she wants to do is lay in a crib and sleep. She fell right to sleep.
It's midnight here and while I hear screams from other rooms, Megan is sleeping like a champ. Our Gotcha Day has been amazing and exhausting. Megan is amazing, beautiful, full of life, and very, very healthy!!! We could not be happier (OK, Rob might be happier if she stopped screaming every time he picked her up).
Take care and we will write again soon.
Like I said, this was the actual e-mail I sent that day.
We spend the next 5 days in Nanning. It is a wonderful city and we saw a lot of it. After Beijing, which was beautiful but crowded and hectic, Nanning was a wonderful change. My father had never been down to this area of China but kept telling how poor the region was and how hot it was going to be. He was right about the heat. It was hot, hot, hot. However, I think things have really changed since he has been there. The country side was very poor, but the city was very modern. We asked Roger to arrange for us to see a typical village that our daughters would have come from. We met a farmer and saw his house. While it had no doors or windows, it did have electricity and running water. Also everything was very clean. Nanning was our get-to-know-our-daughters area. We stayed at the hotel a lot but my husband would venture around the city during nap time. In the evenings we would load up Megan in our front carrier and walk around the streets shopping. We bought clothes and soda for the next day. The biggest thing we bought was Nanning pearls. We wanted to get something from Megan's region for everyone who wrote us letters of reference and pearls for Megan to give her on her 16th birthday. (Although they are so beautiful, I might wear them before that).
While in Nanning some of the things we saw were beautiful parks, a Buddhist temple where the girls got blessings, shopping areas, and a local dance. I cannot say enough about how much we loved Nanning and our time spent there. The area is only 3 hours from the Vietnam boarder and you see some influence on the culture. Also Nanning was the place we bonded with our girls and the other families in our group. Everyone in our group was great. We had a lot of fun together. Roger told us that we were the most fun group he had come through in a while. I still keep in touch with them and we started our own chat room.
Finally we were on to our final leg of the journey. We were on to the White Swan hotel in Guang Zhou. We spent 4 days in Guang Zhou. It was nice, but couldn't hold a candle to Nanning. But that could have been because Megan developed a cold/flu and we didn't want to bring her in and out of the airconditioning a lot. It was hard going from such extreme heat into the airconditioning that was kept so low. We ended up in the Medical Clinic at the White Swan. The doctors were very nice but it's hard working through interpreters. While Cassey and Jasmine did their best to assure me, I was still nervous. However, none of the stories of the doctors using the same tong depressors or syringes on multiple people were true. Every time a doctor looked at Megan, they opened a new package. When they gave my daughter a shot, I made sure it was a new needle. But I didn't need to worry. Did I mention that when they gave my daughter a shot I cried harder than she did. Loving her as much as I loved my son was never a question!!
That aside, Guang Zhou is a shopper's paradise. Other than that, it's just OK. Got spoiled in Nanning I guess.
We flew home on August 3rd and got home the same day. On the way over we followed the day and on the way back it was night for us for 24 hours. Megan was a champ. We upgraded to business class on our way home but did not purchase a seat for Megan. However, we were in a 3-seat row, and there was no one in the 3rd seat. About an hour into the flight we set her in the 3rd seat for just a minute to get situated to sleep, we looked over and she was sound asleep. We buckled her in and somehow she slept the next 10 hours. On a 13 hour flight, she was only awake for the first and last hours. We kept her awake during our layover in LAX and then she slept on the flight to Indy also. She was amazing!
Megan is now part of our family. She and Nathan are fast friends. My husband and I cannot say enough how much we enjoyed our trip. Everyone in our travel group wants to submit their paperwork for their next child together so they can travel together. However, I think 2 children are enough for us. But we definitely want to go to China again some day and take Nathan and Megan to see where Megan is from.
THANK YOU FTIA for making us a proud family of 4. We couldn't be happier and our trip was wonderful!!
